Rituximab Shows Promise Treating CFS

A double-blind placebo-controlled phase II clinical trial of rituximab showed encouraging results. 67 percent of the 15 patients treated with rituximab, a monoclonal antibody, showed improvement after two infusions given two weeks apart, compared to 12 percent of the 15 patients who received placebo. Drs. Olav Mella and Øystein Fluge and their team at Haukeland Medical Center in Bergen, Norway, attracted international attention with the hopeful news. They hypothesize that CFS is an autoimmune condition and that impaired B cells play a role in the illness, based on the delayed response to therapy. More coverage here. (PLoS ONE, Oct. 19, 2011)